Sex, Blood and Power

Tchaikovsky's 'The Enchantress',
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Several music encyclopedias do not even mention Čarodejka ('The Enchantress'), one of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's last operas. Often they just list the title among the composer's many works. The main reason is that it was not performed from 1890 (in Moscow) to 1941 (in St Petersburg, then named Leningrad). After the World War II, the opera was occasionally produced in Russia but never reached the Western world. On the one hand, it is a very costly undertaking with sixteen soloists, a huge chorus and a corps de ballet. On the other, and most significantly, its much awaited premiere at the Mariinsky of St Petersburg (then the most important of the Imperial Theatres system) was a flop. The opera was revised by the composer for productions in Tbilisi in Georgia in 1887, in St Petersburg again in 1888, and in Moscow in 1890. Then, silence until 1941, even though there is fragmentary evidence that with strong revisions of the libretto and with less drastic changes in the music (mostly cuts because the opera, with intermissions, last about four hours), Čarodejka had some circulation in the provincial capitals of the Union of the Socialist Soviet Republic.
Thus, it is an excellent idea that the Mariinsky Theatre of St Petersburg, the São Carlos of Lisbon and Teatro San Carlo of Naples joined forces for the premiere of Čarodejka in the Western world, one hundred and thirty years after its production in the Russian Empire. I saw the opera in Naples at the 17 February 2017 matinée performance. The auditorium and boxes were crowded. A large part of the audience were youngsters under twenty-six, enjoying a reduction in ticket prices); they had come because they had learned by word-of-mouth that Čarodejka was worth seeing and listening to.

A scene from Tchaikovsky's 'Čarodejka' at Teatro San Carlo di Napoli. Photo © 2017 Luciano Romano

It would be an exaggeration to consider Čarodejka as Tchaikovsky's masterpiece, but it is, no doubt, one of the masterpieces of the late European nineteenth century, when the music theatre was searching for a way to merge French-style grand opera with Italian verismo. The extremely complicated plot is based on a fourteenth century story. The Princes of Nizhny Novgorod are attracted by the same enchantress, Natasha, owner and singer in a pub at the confluence between the Volga and the river Oka. Natasha is, of course, in love with the younger but she is enthralled by the elder Prince's money and power. The Princess (ie the wife of Prince Nizhny Novgorod) wants to put an end to this story. She is helped by a necromancer and an intriguing priest. There are quite a few other characters in the plot and in the subplots, even a peasants revolt against the autocratic Prince. Eventually, Natasha is poisoned, the young Prince commits suicide and the old Prince loses his mind and becomes mad.

Aleksej Tanovickij as priest Mamyrov in Tchaikovsky's 'Čarodejka' at Teatro San Carlo di Napoli. Photo © 2017 Luciano Romano

David Pountney and his dramaturgical team — sets by Robert Innes-Hopkins, costumes by Tat'jana Noginova, lighting by Giuseppe Di Iorio, choreography by Renato Zanella — had a brilliant idea: to move this lurid and gruesome Middle Ages story to the end of the nineteenth century when the tragedy by Ippolit Spazinsky, on which the libretto is based, was a major hit in the Russian stage theatre. Thus Čarodejka represents the downfall of a powerful aristocratic family with premonitions of the Revolution.

Young conductor Zaurbek Gugkaev, who has worked for several years with Valery Gergiev, was just excellent. While the chorus and corps de ballet come from the San Carlo Theatre, the soloists are mostly from the Mariinsky Theater Company. The two protagonists Nastasha and the older Prince Nikita Kurljatev have alternates: on 17 February, Ekaterina Latyševa and Ivan Novoselov sang their respective roles. All the other principals — all good — are singing in every performance. Liubov' Sokolova as Princess Evpraksija Romanovna, Nikolaj Emcov as her son, Aleksej Tanovickij in the double role of priest Mamyrov and necromancer Kud'ma, and Ljudmila Gradova as Nenila, the Princess' lady-in-waiting, all deserve special mentions.